Sand Beneath My Feet
by FierySable
Summary: *We are doomed. A race of the damned, they say. Have they ever thought that they have damned themselves?*


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Disclaimer: When the lips of the ocean kiss the highest peak of the mountain ranges, then the Second Great Cataclysm will have happened, and it really won't matter who owned Evangelion now, would it? 

This is a serious piece, no romance, no sap. But nonetheless, I think it's okay, so could you tell me please? Thanx! 

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Sand Beneath My Feet…

Tabris…

The wind keens in soft descant, a reedy counterpoint to the whisper of some far-away flute, and I listen as they whisper their secrets, the notes like pearl drops against the sea, dropping one by one, without a murmur, into oblivion, before the next touched the air. My eyes are closed as I enjoy this world with my human senses, feeling the soft caress of cotton, the teasing touch of a laughing breeze against my skin, the scrap of stone against the rubber ridges of my shoes. Feelings, sensations…like butterfly wings, so ephemeral, as transient as the brief touch of humanity this "life" will afford me...spurious, I know. Nothing but the illusions created by electric currents…but how can electricity tell me of the way the sea smells: salty sweet with a hint of sulfur. How can electricity tell me that the wind ruffles through my hair with mischievous fingers?

I look down at my hands, pale skin stretched across sanguine fluid and calcium carbonate. Electricity and strands of genetic material twining amidst a mass of muscles...Is this all it is to be human? I do not understand…they are strange, my Brothers, my Sisters….these…these Lilliem. So intent in grappling onto their humanity, twisting deeper into their world as a child clings to his mother, basing their self image on what their peers, their family, see in them. They pick each other apart, setting them carefully aside in the file cabinet they call a mind. 

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She is dark. He is light. She is a good candidate…he is not. He is shy, she is outspoken, he is old, she is young… It is not hard to see that they have forgotten. They have forgotten about the way wind chimes against water…their mind, as the Earth accepts the tears of Heaven…soaks in numbers and data, pros and cons. From soil where once blossoms might have once opened, fallow ground lays, sown liberally with salt so that only stunted weeds and dark spears of wild grass may run, spreading their roots deeper into a dust-blown earth. 

It is strange…they say that a single touch of lips against a crimson fruit cast them from God's favor…that with a single whisper from the serpent's poisoned breath, gone was the innocence of Eve. Gone was the nobility of Adam. So easily do they hurl the blame at their ancestors, never once trying to change themselves. 

How can we? They ask, It is human nature, it is who we are. We are a race born in disgrace, without salvation. We are lost. 

Yes, they are lost, but not lambs…no, more like earthworms, blind, unseeing, digging their way ever deeper into the cool assurance of their "inevitable" destiny…wallowing in the complacency of their imminent destruction. We are doomed. A race of the damned, they say. Have they ever thought that they have damned themselves? Cast themselves in the shadows of His eyes? Yes, the First Sin was at the hand of the Second Daughter…but it has been said in their Scriptures that with the last drops of the blood of Christ, purity was restored to humanity; an offer, by God, to return his lost children to the folds of a celestial robe. With a curse and a single runnel of spittle, one man spoke for millions. No. We are not ready. I turn away from You…I seek my own path.

So they sought, over-running the Earth like the weeds that spilled through their thoughts, saturating the soil with their grasping avarice, tearing, splitting, staining their fingers a condemning carmine…have they found what they sought? If they wish for death and greed, sorrow and pain, then their plans have borne ripe fruit, tumbling an abundant harvest into their lap. 

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Tabris…

The wind is laughing again. I sit here, musing of humanity, of Homo sapiens…the "wise men". I let my lips curl. How would they like to know, that the three Wise Men were not so wise, and not so men? That the Angel that heralded His birth, did not have flowing wings of molten gold, nor a gilded horn that sang silver notes? Would it be wise to tell them that they killed their Brother, that they killed Gabriel, with one fell sweep of a scythe? That the shepherd was the one who lit the pyre to scorch the "monster's foul body", dying soon after from burn marks that scarred his body? No…humanity has not learned to accept that yet…they have learned to accept the necessity of war and incessant battle, but they have not yet learned that their Brother may have but one eye and tawny leather in the place of this papery covering of dead cells.

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Tabris…

They have wrapped themselves in a cocoon of bias, unwilling to accept new ideas or people, even after one hundred thousand years. Granted, that is but a flicker of time in the tapestry of existence, but even as His patience is limitless, Hers is not. She grows restless with every added transgression of her youngest Children, sending my Siblings in her stead to admonish them. But like the stubborn infants that refuse to stand, they throw their tantrums, unheeding of their Elders, fracturing into the cells of individuality they call "self". That is why Man insists on standing alone, even as he leans on the bolsters of those around him, needing, yet refusing their proffered assistance. Because how can "he" truly stand alone when "he" is but one part in the Whole? That the Whole is the Self of which they seek? They are the Lost Ones, the Eighteenth Angel…one mind, one body, shattered, like the fragile glass they prize, into tiny splinters, strewn throughout the world by the wind.

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Tabris…Tabris….

She grows impatient with my reticence, yet I remind her that I have lived in their world fourteen years. Encased in this shell of skin and sinew, I have seen their struggle, walked amongst them, pretended to be them. I have seen their hate…yet there is something that intrigues me…their love. I have seen, with these human eyes, the passion of a first kiss, hesitant, yet sweet as the first drop of blood from a crown of thorns. I have seen the unfolding beauty of a dusky sunset, heard the siren's song of the murmuring sea as it reaches yearningly for the sands. I have heard laughter; the solemn tolling of a bell, seen marriage, and death…but it is not enough. There is so much more this world has to offer…so much more to this Angel then a fractured identity…

They are so different from one another, these disparate faces of the Last Angel…their emotions so convolute and contorted that I see nothing but grays where my Mother insists there is dark and light. A cliché? Perhaps…but tell me how you would describe this strange world, this world of colors and sorrow…tell me how you would tell Mother of the eternal dance of life and death, this cycle of love and war. And if you can, I will tell you of the pair of footprints that are beside mine, and perhaps I will speak of the strange boy with wary blue eyes who answered when I called.

~Owari~

Author's Note: Introspective piece. Can you guess who it is? ^_^ You've read it, right? Now comes the second r, review. R-E-V-I-E-W.


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